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Time is flying, it feels as if I had posted the last paper updated just yesterday. However, a quick glance at the list shows that there are quite a few new studies that cover paleoseismology, seismic hazard, earthquake geology, etc. Let me know if I’ve missed something cool. Stay safe!

The Tectonics and Structural Geology Division of EGU (TS) has started a great thing: They are asking the community to name 3-5 must-read papers in their field. This could be really old fundamental stuff or ground-breaking new research – whatever you think everyone in Tectonics & StructGeol should read. The TS team will then select the 40-50 most-voted papers, discuss each of them within the TS community on a public platform on a fortnightly basis, write a summary of each paper and its discussion, and create a compilation of the TS “Must-read” papers that will be permanently archived on EarthArXiv. You can place your vote here or read the blog post on how it works here. Thanks to Silvia Crosetto for pointing me to this cool initiative!

It looks like publishing hasn’t been affected much by the Corona situation, this month’s list is probably the longest we’ve ever had. Enjoy reading and stay safe!

Normal life has come to a halt, but publishing papers apparently not. Here’s a lot of stuff to read at home: nice remote sensing studies, very cool field observations (good old days), an entire trilogy by Dirk Scherler and Wolfgang Schwanghart on drainage divides, and much more. Enjoy reading, tell me if I’ve missed something, and stay safe.

Since we are all (?) sitting at home and waiting for the situation to improve, this may be a good chance to catch up with the latest literature. Alas, new papers are published without mercy every month, and March was no different. Here are the latest ones on paleoseismology., active tectonics, and large earthquakes. Stay safe!

This is the first paper round-up of the year and I think it’s perhaps a new record. So many studies have been published, but maybe it’s just because nobody has done much in the last week of December. Whatever it is – there are some pretty interesting papers in the list. Tsunami biomarkers! Kaikoura EQ news! Historic EQs! New software! Ridgecrest & Palu! And so much more. Enjoy reading!

A recent study presented at the GSA meeting concludes that the UNESCO World Heritage site of Machu Picchu in Peru was intentionally built on faulted bedrock in order to ease the quarrying of the huge blocks used as construction material (Menegat, 2019). But has Machu Picchu seen big earthquakes in its lifetime? And if so, can it tell us something about their magnitude? After all, there are plenty of earthquakes in Peru, not only at the subduction zone but also in the Andes (e.g., Wimpenny et al., 2018). Some strong instrumental events occurred less than 100 km away from the Inca site. However, in the area of Machu Picchu we knew little about strong earthquakes. That’s why in 2016 a group of researchers from Peru, France, and the UK including myself started to investigate the active faults around Cusco and archaeoseismological damage to Machu Picchu and other famous Inca sites nearby in the CUSCO-PATA project.

The recent publication of a paper on the Weitin Thrust (Papua New Guinea) by Chen, Milliner and Avouac (Fig. 1) gave me the opportunity to dig out and look back to some notes I wrote few months ago. Chen et al. use optical image correlation to document coseismic surface ruptures along the Weitin Thrust occurred in a Mw 8.0 event in 2000 and in a Mw 7.7 event in 2019. The ruptures overlap along a 20-km long portion, with 3-4 m of slip (Fig. 2).

Today we have a number of studies on “classic” paleoseismology, but also a fair share of tsunami and historical seismicity/archaeoseismology research. Plus, some very interesting papers on methods and concepts. Not to forget the first one in the list that presents an extremely useful surface rupture database. I may write a long blog post on this one, soon. Enjoy reading!

The mega-hot summer seems to be finally over (at least in Germany), and most of this season’s field work is probably done. So why not catch up with the latest papers on paleoseismology and related subjects? These are the latest papers: